ROSEAU, Dominica, CMC – A lack of maturity is keeping attacking batsman Dwayne Smith out of the West Indies side, chief West Indies selector Clyde Butts has said.
The 27-year-old right-hander has not played for West Indies since his wild slog resulted in his careless dismissal and helped the regional squad slide to an embarrassing two-run defeat to Zimbabwe in the opening One-Day International of the five-match series back in March.
Butts said Smith’s maturity remained a factor in his non-selection as he had not shown the type of temperament selectors had hoped for.
“It was a case whereby we looked at him at the IPL (Indian Premier League) and the [Champions League] as well and you said ‘oh this is a man here who has developed now, let us bring him and give him the chance again and see what he would do,’” Butts said.
“But I don’t think we saw that sort of maturity in Dwayne Smith that we expected.”
Smith, who has played 77 ODIs to date, was only recalled to the West Indies side for the one-day tour of Australia in February, following a three-year sojourn in the wilderness.
He finished the ODI series with 130 runs at an average of 43 to be one of the leading batsmen, along with taking seven wickets with his steady medium pace.
In his only two innings during the Zimbabwe tour of the Caribbean, Smith scored 12 and four and was promptly dropped.
Butts said, however, that Smith had failed to live up to expectations.
“The surprising thing with Dwayne Smith is that he spent a couple years in England and at the IPL and he came back and said he learnt so much cricket,” Butts pointed out.
“But when you actually saw him, I don’t think we saw the sort of development that we wanted to see out of Dwayne.
is a good cricketer. There is no doubt about that in my mind but I don’t think he has matured enough.”
Butts admitted that the regional cricket authorities may have failed to provide the environment for players like Smith to develop properly.
“We are going to have to take some of the blame that we did not put him into a system that would help him … I think we need to identify those things and Dwayne is not the only one,” the former Windies off-spinner noted.
“It’s deeper than just the actual cricket. It’s got to be something that we have got to put in place where we can help those players and I think the High Performance Centre (HPC) is going to be one of the places that those players will be helped.
“Because most of those players when there is not cricket, they’ll be going to the HPC.”
